ESP8266 Community Forum

- Thu Dec 18, 2014 6:22 am #5050 Hello

I wanted to ask if anybody has managed to use esp8266 with Linux ? ..and if so how? I can't find any examples of using "ppp" or any kernel module that enable esp8266 along the lines of wlan0 or ppp0.

Thanks
Bruce

- Thu Dec 18, 2014 7:08 am #5053 I'm not sure if I understand what you want.
The ESP8266 is a computer of it's own, not a WiFi adapter.
So you connect to it like you would to another computer.
Either using a serial connection to your computer's serial port (if it has one, otherwise you need a USB to serial converter) or using the inbuilt WiFi adapter of your computer.

If you have a new module, it isn't configured to connect to your home network and doesn't allow incoming connections (except ICMP, aka ping).

So what you have to do is connecting a USB to serial converter (3.3V outputs) to the ESP and your computer's USB, and then connect to the ESP.
Maybe using

Code: Select allscreen /dev/ttyUSB0


or any serial terminal program you like.
Then you can use AT commands to configure the ESP.
There are several tutorials in this forum about how to do this.

- Thu Dec 18, 2014 7:44 am #5055 I have connected the module to my Linux board (UART1) .... then from my Linux board I use minicom and I can talk to the device.

But now I want to enable my Linux board to use esp8266 as a network interface, any idea if that is possible?

- Thu Dec 18, 2014 8:17 am #5058 Well, not that easy.
The ESP8266 can be configured for a transparent serial connection, but it can't do yport yet.(to create a virtual serial port for e.g. pppd)
In theory it should be possible to to tunnel a ppp connection through udp, but I've never tried it.

Here's how I think this could work:

Host running pppd, tunneled through a udp port
|
Wifi (AP/router)
|
ESP8266, configured to connect to the WiFi, then connect to the udp port on the host and provide a transparent connection through the UART
|
serial connection
|
Linux board running ppp over UART

Interesting setup. Could work, but will be incredibly slow, compared to a direct WiFi connection.
But could be interesting for very small boards running Linux or BSD (I'm thinking of RetroBSD for PIC32 microcontrollers)

I think it may be possible to implement a pppd directly on the ESP8266. That would be nice!